March Update...

Jon, Alphazooby, and I continue to do well. It is nice that the summer is finally coming to a close. About half the nights are now cool enough that I don’t wake up even once to take a shower, that is bliss.

New House? – Jon and I are still working on trying to find a new house. The problem is that there aren’t many appropriate houses in Mmopane and we don’t want to leave all our connections in the village. There haven’t been any other houses to look at over the past two months so we are still hesitantly approaching two from the first batch. I don’t know how likely either one of them are.

The first option is a three bedroom (way too big for us) that needs quite a bit of work: the kitchen is an empty room with wires, the bedrooms have no closets, the bathrooms need tiling and fittings, the windows need security,… We could be interested in that house even though it would take some work (the owners would let us deduct any repairs or upgrades we do from the rent) but the owners are holding out for more rent money than we are willing to pay. Serwalo (my good friend) is good friends with the owner’s aunt and after speaking with Serwalo the aunt is very upset at the way the owners are behaving toward us. Serwalo told me that the aunt is calling a family meeting about the house. We’ll see where things go from there.

The second option is still Joe and Mmasera’s house in the bush that is the right price, more put together, but currently without water and power. Jon and I met with them about the house several weeks ago and they were willing to meet most of our demands but wouldn’t be able to put things together until after we get back from the US in September. This is our backup option if the first house doesn’t work out and we can’t find anything else. We are still very hesitant about both of these options but are willing to consider what it would take to make them happen in order to avoid a move into Gabs.

Pregnancy – Alphazooby is alive and kicking, often. Jon is still amazed to watch my stomach bounce around when Alpha is very active, he says it reminds him of a scene from Alien. Most nights Jon puts a pillow next to my belly and reads to Alpha – he is going to be such a great dad.

Over the past six weeks I have grown quite a bit and have caught up to the weight gain range that all the baby books mention. Even though the belly is getting bigger, I am SO MUCH more comfortable now than I was in the second trimester when it was beastly hot 24 hrs a day. The heat still keeps me down during the day but at least I can sleep at night and have 5 hours in the morning (5am to 10am) to feel human.

As soon as the hospital opened in January I gave up the doctor I had been seeing in town and started seeing the midwives out here. I am very pleased with the change. Aside from the fact that it is 1/8 the cost for each apt, I really appreciate the approach of the staff. Jon and I toured the maternity ward a few weeks ago and were very impressed. The ward uses an LDR room model so that I will Labor, Deliver, and Recover all in the same room – no switching from one place to another depending on which stage I am in. The rooms are single occupant and quite spacious with pull out sofas for the fathers to sleep on. Midwives deliver all the babies unless there are complications – in which case there is always a perinatologist on call in the hospital to help. The hospital has five midwives (four Batswana and one American), so far I have had appointments with two of them and one of the perinatologists – they have all been fantastic. I am amazed at how opposite the philosophy is at this hospital compared to the other two in town – one of them won’t even let the fathers in the maternity ward, the mother has to hold the baby up to the bedroom window in order for the father to see it before she is discharged.

33 weeks pregnant

Trying to pout but looking like a platypus

(In addition to Jon saying I am unable to look angry, he now says I am incapable of

looking pouty. I hope Alpha inherits that trait.)

Update on Serwalo (for those who know her) – Bobby and Serwalo were at our place for dinner last night – Serwalo is up and doing great. She has energy and is enthusiastic about life. The treatment that they started right after Christmas didn’t have the desired effect. The second round left her with terrible stomach issues, unable to get out of bed for a week and a half, along with a myriad of other side effects. For a few days they thought she might not make it through the treatment. She started seeing a new oncologist here in Botswana and has since discontinued treatment for a while to get her healthy and fattened up. It took some time for the effects of the chemo to work their way out of her body but she has continued to get stronger and more energetic – she looks great. Their kids will be home for a week or two at Easter along with Bobby’s brother who will be visiting from Australia so they will meet with the oncologist again at the end of April to make a new treatment plan. For now they are just enjoying having their life back to a relatively normal routine.

Vehicles – Three and a half months later, our truck is still at the shop. We are hoping to get it back this week or next but we’ll see. The motorcycle and car have been seeing us through but it does get to be quite a problem if we need to go anywhere via road between 6am and 10 am, 4pm and 8pm. FM had a visitor in town that we hosted at our house so Jon had to drive him here in the car, it took them three hours to make it here from the hangar. We will be THRILLED when the truck comes home and we can get around off-road again.

Water and Rodents – You wouldn’t think they have much in common, right? Wrong. About two weeks ago we began to notice a sharp increase in the ‘evidence’ of non-canine furry creatures around the house. It isn’t difficult for them to visit - we leave our windows open at night (no screens on any) and our doors fit the doorframes well enough to keep out anything larger than a rabbit but not much smaller. We’ve been setting traps and removing as many hiding spots as we are able… apparently the rodents (from here on referred to as ‘fluffies’ for my sanity) don’t go for cheese, peanut butter, chocolate or sausage in Botswana. After observing their habits for a few days we noticed that the ‘fluffies’ spent more time in/near the washing machine than anywhere else. We disassembled the washing machine but still haven’t been able to make our house seem less appealing to him – we are starting to get desperate. How can such a small thing be so clever?

I bet you are wondering how water fits into all this. Use your imagination… …. …. … No, Jon and I did not try to fill our house with water to get rid of the ‘fluffy’. As luck would have it, last week our water shut off mysteriously on Monday morning and didn’t flow again until late Thursday night. Imagine trying to keep a house clean (and to clean up after fluffies) without any water. Thankfully our neighbor, Joe, brought me a 10L bucket of water most mornings to take care of the essentials. I learned that I can wash a full days worth of dishes, wipe down the kitchen counters, and wash the floor all with just under 2L of water. Save 1L each for bathing, a cup for cleaning up any other messes, a few cups for the dogs to drink, and the rest for a daily toilet flush … it was a long week. (For those who are wondering, I did go to town and buy our drinking and cooking water – no drinking out of a sandy bucket for me). Our water does go out fairly regularly so we keep 30L on hand – but it has never stayed out for so long. Fun, fun, fun.

Holiday – Jon and I went away for three days last month to have some R&R before the baby comes. Even though it was just a weekend away, it was so great to not be in Botswana anymore. We went just over the border into South Africa to the Magaliesburg range of mountains (well… mountains, large hills, something like that). There are gorges that descend the mountains where all the water flows so the gorges are filled with a chain of pools, streams, and waterfalls. We stayed in a little wooden chalet and spent the mornings swimming/hiking, the afternoons napping, and the evenings sitting on our balcony enjoying the stars (while snuggled into a sofa that we hauled out of our chalet). Because the water was so icy cold I could actually walk around without the fear of getting overheated, it was the most exercise I’d gotten in quite a while and felt fantastic. The trip was a desperately needed break albeit much too short. It was beautiful.

Jon swimming in the gorge.

Kids Camps and a Funeral – The week before last was an interesting week. Bobby and Serwalo had scheduled 3 three day kids camps for one of the primary schools in town. The helper they had used for previous camps was no longer available to help run the camps and with Serwalo’s limited energy, they asked if I could help out at the camps (I have in the past). I recruited two of Flying Mission’s energetic 19 year old volunteers to participate and tried to spend half days there myself. It was a challenging week to be chasing kids as the temperatures for the month peaked that week and the sun was relentless without a cloud in the sky. The camps were a fun time of learning local geology and the environmental effects of our actions, climbing Mmopane Hill, gaining map reading skills, and discussing Batswana culture and customs. It was a great week but I am happy to have life back to normal.

The same week Jon and I also had a friend from church pass away suddenly (AIDS) so the evenings that week were filled as well. When someone passes away, every night leading up to the burial the community comes to the family’s house for prayers. We all sit in the yard on plastic chairs, sing a few songs, pray, and listen to one (or often several, depending on the mood) people share from the Bible. After the hour long service ends the family serves all the participants freshly made tea, diphaphata (like English muffins), and magunya (like doughnuts without sugar). The week started with 40 or 50 people attending prayers on Monday night but by Friday (the night of the all-night wake) there were probably 200 people in attendance. I made it to prayers every night but one and helped the family make the diphaphata and serve tea for two of the nights. It took a lot of positive self-talk to get myself to the cooking fires after spending the day outside chasing kids, but from a relational perspective those times are always some of the most rewarding and I was always glad that I did (after getting home, swallowing some Tylenol, drinking some ice water, and taking a shower).

We skipped the all night wake on Friday to take Bobby and Serwalo dinner (they were wiped after their week with the kids) but got up at 4:15am Saturday morning to make it to the funeral service. The dress code for funerals is the same as for prayers – skirts, headscarves, and shawls for women. The funeral was enjoyably brief – we were at the house from 5 to 8am for the viewing and service, to the cemetery for another hour while we sang and the men buried the casket and mounted the grave cover, and then back to the house again for a traditional meal. Unfortunately we’d had other plans made to show some new FM people around for the day so we had to skip the meal (very impolite of us). Given the heat, we scrapped our original plans with the family and took them to a nearby water park (don’t picture Noah’s Ark water park – it isn’t ANYTHING like that). They are from Washington and were really suffering in the heat. We brought Theo, our 11 year old neighbor, with us to play with their two kids. It did both of our families a lot of good to get away and be in the water for a day.

Some Fun Facts:

- 27 – the date of the baby shower that FM is throwing for me

- 11 – Jon’s stress level (on a scale of 1 to 10) given the three huge projects he has to finish before the baby comes (3 days of ground school this week with all freshly developed curriculum, then a couple weeks till he has two new candidates in simulator training for the first time with freshly developed training by mine truly, and then an implementation of MEL (if you don’t know what that means, don’t wonder) that was recently developed by Jon and needs to be rolled out including training and process…. he is wound a little tight).

- -30 – my current tolerance level for heat on a scale of 1 to 15

- 4 – the number of lanterns we had on when our power went out last night (and the night before)

- 3 – the number of days Jon will be teaching Ground School this week (W,R, F – he has been busy putting together all the presentations as it is the first time FMS is doing something like this)

- 2 – the number of new friends we’ve made this week (they are new FMS people from Washington State so they must be kindred spirits, right?)

- 2 – the number of friends we are losing (Matt and Jess, our most regular social friends are leaving us next week to move to Maun in northern Botswana)

- 17 – the number of weeks till our visit to the US (not that we are counting)